System and method for text disambiguation and context designation in incremental search

ABSTRACT

Methods and systems for text disambiguation and context designation in incremental search are provided. A method for selecting items in response to ambiguous keystrokes entered by a user and unambiguous metadata associated with a previously selected search result includes receiving ambiguous keystrokes, selecting and presenting a first subset of items and metadata associated with the items presented based on the ambiguous keystrokes. The method also includes receiving a selection of one of the items from the user, and, in response to a locking operation received from the user, locking in fixed relation at least one of the ambiguous keystrokes to at least one metadata term associated with the selected item. The method further includes, subsequent to receiving the locking operation, selecting and presenting a second subset of items based at least in part on the locked metadata term, and presenting the second subset of items.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/039,395, entitled System and Method for Text Disambiguation andContext Designation in Incremental Search, filed Sep. 27, 2013, now U.S.Pat. No. 8,826,179, which is a continuation of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 12/126,549, entitled System and Method for Text Disambiguationand Context Designation in Incremental Search, filed May 23, 2008, nowU.S. Pat. 8,549,424, which claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) ofU.S. Patent Application No. 60/940,244, entitled System and Method forText Disambiguation and Context Designation in Incremental Search, filedMay 25, 2007, the contents of each of which are incorporated byreference herein.

BACKGROUND Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to user interfaces for searching andbrowsing and, more specifically, to user interfaces that are intended tooperate on input-constrained devices and to provide relevant searchresults with a minimum of user interaction.

Discussion of Related Art

Discovery of desired content is not always simple as searching for aperson, place or object and selecting the desired results. The user'sintent may be deeper and broader, and retrieving the desired resultsmight require more than merely providing more search terms. For example,a user may want to first discover a particular person, place, or entity,then browse through results in that context, and finally, make furtherrefinements. In this case, the search system would need to be able toinfer that the user is searching or browsing in a particular context,and serve content related to that context that satisfies the user'sintent. A user progressively adding additional search terms may bemisinterpreted as an attempt to intersect multiple interests rather thanas a context based search. Some search engines have attempted to definespecific grammars for users to specify a context search, but thesegrammars are often complex and idiosyncratic, and thus only experiencedand advanced users can use them effectively. The expression anddiscovery of intent is further complicated by the possibility that aquery may be entered using ambiguous keypad input (e.g., typed on acellular phone using ambiguous keys).

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention provides methods of and systems for text disambiguationand context designation in incremental search.

Under one aspect of the invention, a user-interface method for selectinga subset of items from a relatively large set of items in response tosearch criteria including ambiguous keystrokes entered by a user from akeypad with overloaded keys and including unambiguous metadataassociated with a previously selected search result includes receivingambiguous keystrokes entered by a user from a keypad with overloadedkeys. A given key of the keypad is in fixed association with a pluralityof alphabetical and numerical symbols the user is using to search fordesired items. In response to receiving the ambiguous keystrokes, themethod selects and presents a first subset of items and correspondingunambiguous metadata associated with the items presented based on theambiguous keystrokes. The method also includes receiving a selection ofone of the items of the first subset of items from the user, and, inresponse to a locking operation received from the user, locking in fixedrelation at least one of the ambiguous keystrokes to at least oneunambiguous metadata term associated with the selected item. The methodfurther includes, subsequent to receiving the locking operation,selecting and presenting a second subset of items based at least in parton the locked unambiguous metadata term, and presenting the secondsubset of items.

Under another aspect of the invention, the unambiguous metadata termlocked in fixed relation to the at least one of the ambiguous keystrokesis one of the presented metadata terms associated with the selected itemof the first subset. The locked metadata term lexically disambiguatesthe items of the first subset from each other for the subsequentselecting and presenting step.

Under a further aspect of the invention, the unambiguous metadata termlocked in fixed relation to the at least one of the ambiguous keystrokesis a metadata term describing a concept associated with the selecteditem of the first subset. Only items associated with the concept of theselected item are selected and presented in the subsequent selecting arepresenting step,

Under yet another aspect of the invention, the method also includesreceiving a browse action from the user for highlighting one of thepresented items of the first subset. In response to the user browseaction, the method transforms at least part of the ambiguous keystrokesinto at least one unambiguous metadata term associated with thehighlighted item At least some of the characters of the unambiguousmetadata term match the alphabetical and numerical symbols in fixedassociation with the ambiguous keystrokes entered by the user.

Under a still further aspect of the invention, the receiving a selectionof one of the items of the first subset of items includes receiving abrowse action from the user for highlighting one of the presented itemsof the first subset. In addition, receiving a locking operation from theuser includes receiving at least one additional keystroke entry from theuser.

Under another aspect of the invention, the at least one additionalkeystroke entry from the user is a keystroke for performing an explicitlock operation.

Under yet another aspect of the invention, the at least one additionalkeystroke entry from the user includes additional ambiguous keystrokesentered by the user for providing additional alphabetical or numericalsymbols for searching for desired items.

Under a further aspect of the invention, systems including logic forperforming the methods above are provided.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a more complete understanding of various embodiments of the presentinvention, reference is now made to the following descriptions taken inconnection with the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a network diagram that illustrates the various components of asearch system, according to certain embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram that depicts the various components of auser device, according to certain embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 3 is a user-interface diagram that depicts the various componentsof the search interface, according to certain embodiments of theinvention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart that illustrates the operation of a search system,according to certain embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 5 is a user interface diagram that illustrates the operation of thenavigation, synchronization, and LEXICAL LOCK features, according tocertain embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 6 is a user interface diagram that illustrates the operation of theCONCEPT LOCK feature, according to certain embodiments of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments of the invention described here enable a user todisambiguate otherwise ambiguous and/or incomplete text query entriesbased on terms and metacontent associated with search results that aredetermined by a search engine to be relevant to the user's query input.A user interface incorporating the techniques disclosed herein can usean ambiguous keypad (e.g., a keypad with overloaded keys) or anunambiguous keypad to receive a search query input from a user. Theinput query symbols may be, for example, single numeric characters(e.g., on an ambiguous keypad) or single text-alphabet characters (e.g.,on an unambiguous QWERTY keypad). Embodiments of the invention can alsobe used with incremental search techniques, in which results areretrieved as each character is typed.

Techniques for selecting a set of results responsive to the user's queryinclude, but are not limited to, those disclosed in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 11/235,928, entitled Method and System ForProcessing Ambiguous, Multi-Term Search Queries, filed Sep. 27, 2005,U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/136,261, entitled Method and SystemFor Performing Searches For Television Content Using Reduced Text Input,filed May 24, 2005, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/246,432,entitled Method and System For Incremental Search With Reduced TextEntry Where The Relevance of Results is a Dynamically Computed Functionof User Input Search String Character Count, filed Oct. 7, 2005, all ofwhich are herein incorporated by reference. Similarly, lists of relevantresults can be displayed using techniques disclosed in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 12/123,940, entitled Method and System for Searchwith Reduced Physical Interaction Requirements, filed on May 20, 2008,incorporated by reference herein.

While the user is composing a text query on an ambiguous keypad, theuser's query, in general, can be said to be ambiguous (in the sense ofthe symbol being from an overloaded numeric keypad, where each keycorresponds to a set containing more than one character, as is standardin cellular telephones) as well as incomplete (in the sense that one ormore words in the query could be incomplete). For an illustration ofambiguous and incomplete queries and query-words, consider the followingexample. Suppose that the user's intended complete and unambiguous queryis “engelbert humperdinck biggest hit.” An incomplete but unambiguousversion of the same query is “engel hump bigg hit” because the firstthree query-words in the latter query are prefixes of the respectivefirst three query-words in the complete and unambiguous query.Similarly, an incomplete as well as ambiguous version of the same querywould be entered by pressing the keys labeled “36435 4867 2444 448”(assuming this query is entered using a standard numeric keypad of thekind commonly found in telephones and/or television remote controls)because the query-words “36435,” “4867,” and “2444” are prefixes of thenumeric versions of the first three query-words in the complete andunambiguous query. The words “humpback” and “humperdinck” both match theincomplete query-word “hump,” because “hump” is a. prefix of both thewords. The words “humpback” and “humperdinck” both match the ambiguousand incomplete query-word “4867,” because “4867” is an ambiguous prefixof the complete and ambiguous query-words “48672225” and “48673734625”(which match “humpback” and “humperdinck,” respectively).

Preferred embodiments of the present invention address several usabilityproblems. First, preferred embodiments allow users to press each keyonly once to enter a specific character, even if the key is associatedwith multiple characters (as on an overloaded keypad). Second, preferredembodiments permit users to type only a partial prefix of each searchterm. Finally, preferred embodiments allow for the progressiverefinement of search queries in a context-sensitive way.

The techniques described herein provide methods for partially automatedcompletion, disambiguation, and progressive refinement of search queriesby using an iterative search-browse-select process. In most cases, thisapproach reduces the number of steps in reaching the desired result, byeliminating separate disambiguation and context-narrowing steps.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the query systemmaintains four entities in a computer-readable data structure. Thesearch-query is a data structure that contains the contents of the queryinput box in the user interface. The clone-query is a secondary querystorage structure that allows the restoration of previous queries afterthe primary search-query has been changed. Unlike the search-query, thecontents of the clone-query are not directly displayed to the user; thisdata structure is maintained by the search system for internal use. Thecontext-list is a data structure that contains information that is usedto limit the search space from which the search system will retrieveresults. Finally, the result-list is a data structure that holds theresults that the system has determined are relevant to the user's queryand query context. The manipulation and use of these four structures isdescribed in greater detail below.

The search-query contains a set of query terms, which may be eitherdirect-input query terms or locked query terms. Direct-input query termsare those query terms (that could be incomplete and/or ambiguous) thathave been input by the user using the keypad. Locked query-words arequery terms that have been placed into the search-query automatically asa result of a “lock” operation. Lock operations are described in greaterdetail below, but in general, a locked query term is a word that theuser interface has put into the search-query in place of a user-enteredambiguous and/or incomplete query term portion. These locked query termscan come from metacontent associated with a particular search resultreturned by a search engine.

FIG. 1 illustrates the various components of a search system, accordingto certain embodiments of the invention. A server farm [100] serves as asource of search data and relevance updates with a network [105]functioning as the distribution framework. The distribution frameworkmight be a cable television network, a satellite television network, anIP-based network, or any other type of widely-used networking framework.It may be a wired network or a wireless network, or a hybrid networkthat uses both of these communication technologies. The search devicesare preferably hand-held devices with limited display and inputcapabilities, such as a hand-held PDA [101], a remote control [115 b]that interfaces with a television [115 a], or any other input- andoutput-constrained mobile device (e.g., a cellular phone).

FIG. 2 is a diagram that depicts the various components of a userdevice, according to certain embodiments of the invention. The userdevice communicates with the user via a display [201] and a keypad[204]. This keypad may be an overloaded keypad that produces ambiguoustext input. Computation is performed using a processor [202] that storestemporary information in a volatile memory store and persistent data ina persistent memory store [206]. Either or both of these memory storesmay hold the computer instructions for the processor to perform thelogic described herein. The device is operable to connect to a remotesystem using a remote connectivity module [205].

FIG. 3 is a user-interface diagram that depicts the various componentsof the search interface, according to certain embodiments of theinvention. Box [300] represents the screen of the user device. At thetop of the screen is the query input box [301]. As described above, thequery input box displays the current contents of the search-query datastructure. In FIG. 3, the search-query consists of the ambiguous queryterm corresponding to the keystrokes “36435” on an overloadedtelephone-style keypad, where each number key is associated withmultiple characters. The portion [302] of the screen below the queryinput box [301] is used to display the contents of the result-list. Ifthe result-list is empty, no results are displayed. Otherwise, thisportion of the screen [302] is subdivided into rows [303], each of whichdisplays information about a particular search result. In addition tothe title of the result, this information may include metadata relevantto the result. In fact, the title of the result is itself only oneexample of metadata relevant to the result. For example, in FIG. 3 thewords “(Music/Multimedia)” appear next to “Engel” in order to provideadditional context to the user. The user may use a keyboard navigationinterface to browse through the result-list. When the user navigates toa particular row, that row is highlighted. When none of the rows areselected, the query input box is highlighted (illustrated in FIG. 3 as ashaded background with white text [301]).

As described above, the techniques described herein may he used withdevices that have overloaded keypads. In FIG. 3, the ambiguous andincomplete search term “36435” has been entered using an overloadednumeric telephone keypad. Using the techniques described in the patentapplications referenced above, the system may automatically generatevarious completions and disambiguations of the search query. In thisexample, bath “engel” and “fogel” are selected as possibledisambiguations of “36435,” and the set of suggested completionsincludes “Fogelburg,” “Engelbert,” and “Engelke,” among others. Theportion of the suggested completion that matches the ambiguous queryterm is here shown in boldface and underlined.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart that illustrates the operation of a search system,according to certain embodiments of the invention. When the system isinitialized, the search-query, the clone-query, the result-list, and thecontext-list are empty [401]. Although not shown in FIG. 4, the searchinterface optionally provides means for the user to return to thisinitial state at any time during the search process. At this point, thesystem waits for the user to begin searching by entering [402] acharacter into the query input box [301]. After the user enters acharacter, it is added to the search-query. If the rightmost query termin the search-query is a direct-input query term, the character isappended to this query term. The user may begin entering a newdirect-input query term by inserting a space (or any other appropriatedelimiter). Following the user's character entry, the new search-queryis optionally submitted to the search engine [404], without requiringthe user to explicitly launch the query. At this point, the contents ofthe search-query are copied to the clone-query, and the results of thesearch are displayed [404].

At this point, the user may enter another character to further refinethe search query [402] or navigate [405] to one of the displayed results[304]. When the user navigates to a displayed result, the result ishighlighted, and the incomplete or ambiguous terms in the search-queryare synchronized to the highlighted result. In the context of FIG. 3,the user's navigating to the “Engelbert Humperdinck” result [304] wouldcause the search query to change from “36435” to “EngelbertHumperdinck,” Only the search-query is synchronized to the highlightedresult; the clone-query remains unchanged. If the user navigates to adifferent result, the search-query is restored from the contents of theclone-query and re-synchronized to the newly highlighted result. Theprocess of synchronization is described in more detail below.

Having navigated [405] to a search result, the user is presented withfour options. First, if desired, the user may select the highlightedresult [406]. In preferred embodiments, selecting the result mightinstruct the system to retrieve the associated document and open itusing an appropriate application. For example, depending on the type ofresult selected, the system might retrieve and open it using aweb-browser, a video player, a text reader, etc.

Second, the user may trigger a REVERT operation [403]. This option willcause the contents of the clone-query to be copied into thesearch-query, restoring it to its original state. Also, it willun-highlight the currently highlighted result and more the input focusback to the query input box. Thus, a REVERT operation returns the searchinterface to the state it was in before the user navigated to a specificsearch result [405].

Third, the user may trigger a LEXICAL LOCK operation [407]. The user mayperform a LEXICAL LOCK in order to accept the synchronized search-queryand launch a new query using the disambiguated terms. This option willcause the contents of the search-query to be copied into theclone-query. After this occurs, it is no longer possible to restore theinitial, ambiguous search-query using a REVERT operation. As describedabove, navigating to the “Engelbert Humperdinck” result in FIG. 3 [304]would cause the search-query to synchronize to “Engelbert Humperdinck.”If, at this point, the user were to trigger a LEXICAL LOCK operation, anew search for the unambiguous term “Engelbert Humperdinck” would beperformed, eliminating disambiguations like “Engel” and partial matcheslike “Fogelburg.” The LEXICAL LOCK operation is further described below.

Fourth, the user may choose to trigger a CONCEPT LOCK operation [408]. ACONCEPT LOCK is intended to address situations in which metadata failsto sufficiently distinguish results that represent fundamentallydifferent “concepts.” For example, the query terms “EngelbertHumperdinck” might refer to Engelbert Humperdinck the popular singerborn in 1936, or they might refer to Engelbert Humperdinck thewell-known composer of German Opera who lived in the 19^(th) century. Inthis case, topical metadata may be unable to distinguish between thesetwo possibilities, since both Engelbert Humperdincks would likely beindexed under terms like “Composer,” “Musician,” “Singing,” etc.

To overcome this problem, search results are manually associated withGlobal identifiers (GIDs) that correspond to various “concepts.” Theseidentifiers make it possible to distinguish between two separateconcepts that happen to be associated with similar metadata. Forexample, Engelbert Humperdinck the singer might be associated with GID500, while results about Engelbert Humperdinck the composer might haveGID 510. Navigating to a result with GID 500 and triggering a CONCEPTLOCK will cause the selected GID (i.e. 500) to be stored in thecontext-list. Preferably, when launching a query, the system will passthe contents of the context-list to the search engine, thereby ensuringthat only results related to GID 500 will be returned. Results aboutEngelbert Humperdinck the composer, though they may be associated withsimilar metadata, will not be included in the result-list because theyare not associated with GID 500. The synchronization process and theLEXICAL LOCK and CONCEPT LOCK operations are further illustrated below.

FIG. 5 is a user interface diagram that illustrates the operation of thenavigation, synchronization, and LEXICAL LOCK features described above.Screen I [300] shows the search interface as it appeared in FIG. 3. Theuser may then use the device's keypad to navigate [501] to the“Engelbert Humperdinck” result. As shown in Screen II [510], this resultis highlighted [304], and the search-query (displayed in the query inputbox [301]) is synchronized to “Engelbert Humperdinck.” During thesynchronization process, each direct-input query term in thesearch-query that matches a complete and unambiguous term (or phrase,such as “Engelbert Humperdinck”) in the highlighted result's metacontentis removed and the corresponding complete and unambiguous term (orphrase) is put in place of the corresponding direct-input query term asa locked query term. Thus, because “Engelbert Humperdinck” matches“36435,” the direct-input query term “36435” is replaced by the lockedquery term “Engelbert Humperdinck” in the search-query.

Having navigated to the highlighted result [304], the user may entermore ambiguous characters [521]. This automatically moves the focus(i.e., the highlighted item) to the query input box, and the ambiguouscharacters “244” are added to the end of the search-query. This alsoperforms an implicit LEXICAL LOCK on the query term “EngelbertHumperdinck.” The search system automatically launches the newsearch-query in the search engine and returns results that are relatedto the locked query term “Engelbert Humperdinck” and the ambiguous queryterm “244,” The state of the interface after this search is shown inScreen 111 [520]. At the end of each row, the system may optionallydisplay the metadata matched by the ambiguous query term. For example,after the result “And I Love Him” [522], the word “cigarettes” appearsin parentheses, indicating that this result was selected because it isassociated with “cigarettes,” which matches the ambiguous query term“244.” Optionally, the portion of the metadata that matches theambiguous query term may be set-off from the rest of the text. In ScreenIII [520], the matching portion of the metadata is underlined.

To fully disambiguate the search-query, the user may perform a LEXICALLOCK operation. In the scenario shown in FIG. 5, the user navigates tothe “What a Wonderful World” result and triggers a LEXICAL LOCK [521].As described above, navigating to the “What a Wonderful World” resultcauses the search-query to synchronize its direct-input query terms tothe corresponding locked query terms. In this case, the direct-inputterm “244” is synchronized to “biggest.” The LEXICAL LOCK operationmakes this change permanent, fully disambiguating the search-query; asshown in Screen IV [530].

FIG. 6 is a user interface diagram that illustrates the operation of theCONCEPT LOCK feature. Screen III [520] (identical to Screen III in FIG.5) lists results that are relevant to the locked query term “EngelbertHumperdinck” and the direct-input term “244.” This listing includesterms that are relevant to Humperdinck the popular singer (e.g. “What aWonderful World” [523], the title of a song performed by Humperdinck)and also terms that are relevant to Humperdinck the German composer(e.g., “Hänsel und Gretel” [611], the name of his most famous opera). Asexplained above, it is difficult to distinguish between these twoconcepts using metadata alone. This type of distinction is facilitatedby the CONCEPT LOCK operation.

For example, in FIG. 6, suppose the user is searching for resultsrelated to Humperdinck the composer and not Humperdinck the singer. Inorder to narrow the scope of the search to the composer, the user wouldfirst navigate to a search result related to the desired concept [601].In this case, the user selects the result titled “Hänsel und Gretel”[611]. Screen IVa [610] depicts the state of the interface after theuser has navigated to this result.

At this point, the user triggers a CONCEPT LOCK [611], which limits thequery to concepts related to the selected result. As explained above,search terms may be associated with an arbitrary number of GIDS thatcorrespond to various concepts. When the system performs a CONCEPT LOCK,the GIDs associated with the current result are added to thecontext-list. For example, performing a CONCEPT LOCK on “Hänsel undGretel” might add the GID corresponding to the concept “Humperdinck theGerman Composer” to the context-list. By limiting future searches tothis concept, the system is able to filter out unwanted search resultsabout Engelbert Humperdinck the popular singer. CONCEPT LOCK operationsmay be performed explicitly (e.g., in response to the user pressing abutton) or implicitly by the search system.

The database used to associate concept GIDs with search terms may bestored and maintained by either the search engine or the client device.If maintained by the search engine, the client device would submit thecurrent context-list to the search engine together with thesearch-query. The search engine would then return only those resultsthat are relevant to the concept GIDs contained in the context-list.Alternatively, the client device may maintain a database of GIDs inwhich each GID is associated with a set of pre-constructed queries. Inthis case, the client device will send these pre-constructed queries tothe search engine along with the search-query in order to limit thesearch results.

It will be appreciated that the scope of the present invention is notlimited to the above-described embodiments, but rather is defined by theappended claims; and that these claims will encompass modifications ofand improvements to what has been described.

What is claimed is: 1-16. (canceled)
 17. A method for searching for anitem, comprising: receiving a first keystroke sequence that represents aplurality of symbols; in response to receiving the first keystrokesequence, comparing the plurality of symbols represented by the firstkeystroke sequence to information associated with items in a collectionof items; selecting, using control circuitry, a first result set ofitems in the collection, wherein the information associated with eachitem in the first result set comprises the plurality of symbolsrepresented by the first keystroke sequence; generating for display theitems in the first result set; receiving a first user selection of anitem in the first result set; in response to receiving the first userselection of the item in the first result set, automatically obtainingmetadata associated with the selected item; searching metadataassociated with the collection of items to generate a second result setof items based on the obtained metadata associated with the selecteditem, wherein the searching comprises identifying items in thecollection that are associated with metadata that comprise the obtainedmetadata associated with the selected item; and generating for displaythe items in the second result set.
 18. The method of claim 17, whereinautomatically obtaining the metadata associated with the selected itemcomprises: retrieving, using the control circuitry, from a database alist of specific context identifiers; and selecting one of the specificcontext identifiers associated with the item selected by the user. 19.The method of claim 18 further comprising: retrieving a specific contextidentifier associated with the item selected by the user; and selectingthe one of the specific context identifiers by identifying which of thelist of specific context identifiers matches the retrieved specificcontext identifier.
 20. The method of claim 17, wherein receiving thefirst user selection of an item comprises receiving a second keystrokesequence.
 21. The method of claim 17, wherein receiving the first userselection of an item comprises: receiving a user input that navigatesthrough the first result set; and in response to receiving the userinput, highlighting the item in the first result set.
 22. The method ofclaim 17, wherein the first keystroke sequence comprises an ambiguouskeystroke, and wherein the information includes a word that isassociated with the item that matches letters corresponding to theambiguous keystroke.
 23. The method of claim 17 further comprising:receiving a second user selection of a given item of the second resultset; and determining a type associated with a given item selected by theuser.
 24. The method of claim 23 further comprising: selecting anapplication associated with the determined type; and executing theapplication for presenting the given item in response to receiving thesecond user selection.
 25. The method of claim 17 further comprising:storing in a database a list of specific context identifiers eachassociated with a pre-constructed query; and wherein automaticallyobtaining the metadata associated with the selected item comprisesselecting one of the specific context identifiers that is associatedwith a pre-constructed query that matches the first keystroke sequence.26. The method of claim 17 further comprising storing the metadataassociated with the selected item in a context-list.
 27. A system forsearching for an item, comprising: control circuitry configured to:receive a first keystroke sequence that represents a plurality ofsymbols; in response to receiving the first keystroke sequence, comparethe plurality of symbols represented by the first keystroke sequence toinformation associated with items in a collection of items; select afirst result set of items in the collection, wherein the informationassociated with each item in the first result set comprises theplurality of symbols represented by the first keystroke sequence;generate for display the items in the first result set; receive a firstuser selection of an item in the first result set; in response toreceiving the first user selection of the item in the first result set,automatically obtain metadata associated with the selected item; searchmetadata associated with the collection of items to generate a secondresult set of items based on the obtained metadata associated with theselected item, wherein the searching comprises identifying items in thecollection that are associated with metadata that comprise the obtainedmetadata associated with the selected item; and generate for display theitems in the second result set.
 28. The system of claim 27, wherein thecontrol circuitry is configured to automatically obtain the metadataassociated with the selected item by: retrieving, from a database, alist of specific context identifiers; and selecting one of the specificcontext identifiers associated with the item selected by the user. 29.The system of claim 28, wherein the control circuitry is furtherconfigured to: retrieve a specific context identifier associated withthe item selected by the user; and select the one of the specificcontext identifiers by identifying which of the list of specific contextidentifiers matches the retrieved specific context identifier.
 30. Thesystem of claim 27, wherein the control circuitry is configured toreceive the first user selection of an item by receiving a secondkeystroke sequence.
 31. The system of claim 27, wherein the controlcircuitry is configured to receive the first user selection of an itemby: receiving a user input that navigates through the first result set;and in response to receiving the user input, highlighting the item inthe first result set.
 32. The system of claim 27, wherein the firstkeystroke sequence comprises an ambiguous keystroke, and wherein theinformation includes a word that is associated with the item thatmatches letters corresponding to the ambiguous keystroke.
 33. The systemof claim 27, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:receive a second user selection of a given item of the second resultset; and determine a type associated with a given item selected by theuser.
 34. The system of claim 33, wherein the control circuitry isfurther configured to: select an application associated with thedetermined type; and execute the application for presenting the givenitem in response to receiving the second user selection.
 35. The systemof claim 27, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:store in a database a list of specific context identifiers eachassociated with a pre-constructed query; and wherein control circuitryis configured to automatically obtain the metadata associated with theselected item by selecting one of the specific context identifiers thatis associated with a pre-constructed query that matches the firstkeystroke sequence.
 36. The system of claim 27, wherein the controlcircuitry is further configured to store the metadata associated withthe selected item in a context-list.